


Echo chamber

by Seek_The_Mist



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Accidental Triggering during sex, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunion Sex, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:50:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seek_The_Mist/pseuds/Seek_The_Mist
Summary: After months of separation, Damen is more than eager to reunite with Laurent. Unforeseen situations make their night together more emotional than either of them anticipated.“I am aware of Patran costume.” Laurent reached up and kissed him again, his lips brushing against the beard. Damen could feel the shuddering of Laurent’s breath.“And how does that feel?” Damen taunted, kissing along Laurent’s lower lip and chin.The light frown was still on, but Laurent’s mouth parted slightly, pliant to the contact. “It does suit you.”





	Echo chamber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).



> This fic is a gift for Elle, an unchallenged murderkitten and a gift that keeps on giving as a person and as a creator.  
> She is both to thank and to blame for the very existence of this fic, since we lured me into a lengthy conversations about Captive Prince earlier in the year, I expressed this whole concept and she declared I had to write it. Since then, she dragged me into the fandom community and I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience and the people.  
> It's only fitting, then, that this is her Christmas gift fic. I love you, darling, stay awesome.  
>   
> I colloquially referred to this WIP as **Good sex, still triggered** , which is fairly comprehensive of its content.  
> This work is mostly in Damen's pov, Laurent's pov will be marked by sections in italics.  
>   
> Special thanks go to Luna, a lovely deer, and Josselin, a lovely strawberry, that spent Christmas Eve with me and this fic.  
>   
> MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY SMUTMAS, PLEASE ENJOY!

  
  
  


The hardwood door of the royal chambers closed behind Damen’s back with subdued heaviness. The wood on the inside was as full of carvings and gold lining as the outside had been, but still managed to pale in opulence against the frescos on the ceiling of the quarters. Heavenly skies and bucolic sceneries lined up in every space left by the pink marble that provided a skeleton for the room itself. 

Damen took three steps forward. The thick carpet muffled each movement, and golden vines twirled and spread in three thousand paths on the wool. 

“I assume you redecorated.” Damen ran a hand on the back of a couch, velvety but remarkably sober for the surrounding Veretian standards.

“I happened to have a cloth merchant agreeable to my tastes. Do you approve?” Laurent turned his head to cast a glance towards Damen, from where he stood next to the drinking cabinet. The griva Damen had brought back from his trip to Patras with Makedon sat among a variety of glasses and jugs of lemon water, dutifully placed by the servants before their arrival. 

“How could I not, being a mere assistant?” 

“One would hope you learned something in your time, but we must despair.”

Damen snorted softly, just as the corner of Laurent’s mouth tilted upwards. The smirk was less betraying of his glee than the glistening of his blue eyes but it lit something through his aristocratic profile, even while he stood elegant and composed. The lacing on the back of his jacket followed the arch of his spine in an strict curve all the way to the nape of the neck. The golden waves of his hair matched the shininess of the crown pressing on them. Laurent was perfect to the eye and Damen could not look away, caught in the ache of the months they spent apart. 

Laurent abandoned his survey to turn completely towards Damen, luxuriating in his stare while providing a remarkable pretense of being unaware of it. Still, his eyes trailed downwards and then back up Damen’s body, and Damen could only smile wider. 

“You should greet me properly, husband. Come closer.” 

Damen closed the distance, reaching with one hand to stroke along Laurent’s sleeve. “I did greet you properly, according to Veretian protocol.” 

Some hours earlier, Laurent had waited for Damen at the gate of the palace, his reformed Council behind his back and the people of Arles pouring into the streets to see the kings reunited in the old Veretian capital. Damen had dismounted and taken Laurent’s extended hand to kiss it at the knuckles before moving his lips to his husband’s mouth. Arles had clapped its approval, and the evening feast had begun. Throughout the evening, Laurent had rarely foregone the grasp of Damen’s hand, but had not ventured more explicit displays of affection, just as much of an ice king as he had been a crown prince.  
Now, the feast was still ongoing two floors down, but they were alone in Laurent’s royal bedchambers. They were new to Damen, who had only known this palace as the slave of the Prince. The fireplace whistled quietly by itself and the glow of flames on Laurent’s skin reminded Damen of what he had been missing in the last months. 

Laurent’s hand slid over Damen’s chest, gripping onto the heavy Akelion fabric crossing over his sternum. “Then greet me like you meant to.”

Damen let himself be dragged forward, tilting his head to meet Laurent’s lips again, already kissing more fully than he had dared to on the palace’s stairs. The contact ran hot as their skin and then hotter, while Damen coaxed the kiss to deepen. Laurent’s hand twitched against Damen’s collarbone, even before the first stroke of their tongues together, but Damen cradled his nape and Laurent relaxed once again. They kissed for a long time in the middle of the room and Damen poured every greeting he had imagined for his return into chasing the faintest hitches in Laurent’s breath, the ways Laurent’s back went tense and then lax again. When Damen next tilted his head to change the angle of the kiss, Laurent pulled backwards, endearingly out of breath. Damen lifted an eyebrow, suggestive and encouraging, and the two seconds of silence that followed told him that Laurent didn’t trust himself to speak just yet.

“Yes?” Damen prompted, smiling.

With the faintest crease over his forehead, Laurent slid his hand up, to stroke along Damen’s beard. He inhaled and exhaled, without looking Damen in the eyes. “When did this come to be?”

“I started growing it after I left Ios, kept it through the negotiation in Patras. I thought it best not to give the impression of a young man out of his depths. Don’t you agree?” Damen replied, tilting his head against the stroking of Laurent’s fingers on his beard, full and well-groomed.

“I am aware of Patran costume.” Laurent reached up and kissed him again, his lips brushing against the beard. Damen could feel the shuddering of Laurent’s breath.

“And how does that feel?” Damen taunted, kissing along Laurent’s lower lip and chin.

The light frown was still on, but Laurent’s mouth parted slightly, pliant to the contact. “It does suit you.”

“That’s not an answer,” Damen stressed, kissing along the line of Laurent’s cheekbones, of his fluttering eyelids.

Laurent pulled back again, pushing against their embrace. His glare lacked heat, and Damen could only smile and grab one-handedly onto Laurent’s right arm when Laurent pushed against his chest. His sleeves were as tightly laced as ever, a criss-cross of silk from wrist to forearm.

“Attend me.”

The purpose was clear to them both. Damen grasped onto Laurent more firmly.

“With pleasure.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Three candles on the bedside table filled the bed with a faint, shuddering light that prolonged every shadow. The thick blue canopy engulfed every corner in darkness and Laurent’s eyelashes were impossibly long on his fair features. Damen stopped kissing him again and the wetness on his lips shone, drying against unsteady breaths. It was impossible to see properly, and yet Damen liked to imagine the redness of the friction with his beard, the way it must tingle and spread on Laurent’s sensitive skin. 

Kneeling further down the bed, Damen dragged the last layer of undergarments off Laurent’s legs. They were already falling open against the press of Damen’s hands on the curve of Laurent’s knees, twitching reflexively when the fingers dug in. He let his eyes roam higher, over rider’s thighs and slim waist, and lingered on the evidence of Laurent’s eagerness. The thought of chasing the heightened sensitivities of Laurent’s mouth all the way to the curve of his cock was a beacon in his mind. When Damen lifted his eyes to look at Laurent goosebumps followed, and he knew, instinctively, that Laurent imagined just the same thing. 

“Don’t you feel this is slightly excessive?” Damen mused, gesturing at the arrangement of no less than twelve pillows cluttering around mahogany of the headboard. 

Laurent, naked and glorious and now crowned just by the spread of his own hair, made a huge point of sinking further into the arrangement at his back. “Why? This is a perfectly sensible level of comfort. Should we add a more solid supply of down to the revised trade deals, and introduce the fine Akielon people to this unthinkable luxury?”

Damen laughed unabashedly, and pressed a kiss against Laurent’s knee. Another wave of goosebumps rose. “Because I want to be able to reach you.”

“I’m sure you can figure something out.” Laurent’s feet tensed under another brush of kisses, and beard rub. 

Suppressing the maudlin compulsion of telling Laurent all the ways the thoughts of him chased the journey to Patras in his absence, Damen just rolled his eyes. Laurent’s idea of a bedplay quite tested his patience, as Damen would very much prefer less push and pulling and more direct gratification. Yet, evidently, it had been growing on him, settled in their shared life. He pushed up his knees and went to kiss Laurent again, grabbing the headboard for support when a hand on Laurent’s shoulder only made him sink further down in the mountain of pillows. He hummed, frustrated, even though there was something inherently lascivious about his ever-composed husband slouching down on a bed underneath him.

“I do have some ideas, actually,” Damen added, and straightened up enough to survey the pillows. He picked up one of the broader but firmest ones, and tossed it down in the centre of the mattress.

“One down, and I wasn’t even using that one,” Laurent pointed, a faint eyebrow elegantly raised. 

“No, you weren’t,” Damen conceded, and knelt back, away from Laurent’s body. Laurent’s eyes followed him through, over features that must be familiar by now, flashing on the shadow of the beard. Damen gestured at the pillow. “Turn over.”

Laurent’s eyes went slightly wider, for just one second. Damen licked his lips, and Laurent averted his gaze, somber against the twitching of his cock. He regrouped away from the pillows and slid off them, and went to lean face down on the middle of the bed, hips propped up. There was a fraction of awkwardness, knees and elbows adjusting, but then Damen himself was moving, just the tip of his fingers skittering down Laurent’s side. Laurent relaxed against the pillows, back arched and legs opening, an offering on a spread of silk. 

“I missed you, husband,” Damen whispered, tracing the bumps of Laurent’s spine with just the tip of his fingers. 

Laurent’s calf stroked blindly against Damen’s leg, and he sighed, “As did I.”

Damen smiled and slid between Laurent’s spread legs, skittering with his fingers on a path towards Laurent’s shoulders, and bent down to kiss along the bend of his back. Laurent’s breath caught, contained, controlled. Damen could feel his beard sliding in the upturn of the small of Laurent’s back, and chased the trail with kisses, softly. Laurent tensed, silently, but did not move or comment.

Still tracing over the shoulder blades with his left hand, Damen ran a thumb on the tendon at the inside of Laurent’s knee. Laurent’s foot twitched, and then he tensed again while Damen resumed his kisses down on the roundness of his buttocks. Muscles flexed deliciously underneath and Damen could not resist the urge to bite down, just vaguely. Laurent’s breath reappeared, faltering. 

“Surely you know where this is going,” Damen whispered against his skin, his thumb tracing circles higher and higher on Laurent’s leg. 

In the span of two seconds, Laurent’s back relaxed once again, tilting up his backside, every inch an invitation. “Yes.”

“Good,” Damen smiled, and caressed gently up Laurent’s leg and then back, until he could see the shivers. He steadied them by grasping Laurent’s cheek. Laurent sighed once again at the pressure of Damen’s fingers, feeling him more than exposing him. Then Damen bent further and started kissing up from the opposite side, from the bent of the knee back to where he started. Laurent’s leg tensed at every brush, and in the silence of the room his breathing came and went, losing rhythm. 

Back on Laurent’s cheek, Damen kissed it once again and then he blew on it, softly. He had the impression of Laurent imitating him, a deep exhale coming from above. Keeping his fingers rubbing, he breathed again on the warm skin, toughened by the saddle even while never exposed to anyone but him. He moved his head, resisting the temptation of reaching for Laurent’s hardness in order to kiss the inside of his thigh. His leg spasmed and Laurent stopped breathing. Damen smiled against the skin, marvellously sensitive as usual, and kept on it until Laurent looked like he was about to clench his legs together. Damen withdrew, stroking him again, over his backside and along his stiff back, until Laurent relaxed with a wavering sigh. 

Damen’s own erection rested between his legs, but the main drive to stop teasing Laurent was the willingness to rile him up further, rather than make him rock back and forth in pleasure. Perhaps, Damen thought, later on in the night. 

Spreading him with one hand and nudging the legs wider was enough of a warning, for Laurent to breathe in, anticipating.

Damen bent down between his legs and placed his lips to the very centre of Laurent. Among the warmth, everything spasmed while he adjusted the position and kissed him again, and again. Laurent was silent, as usual, and the first couple of licks over his hole choked his breath away, in an indistinct point above Damen. He rubbed the top of his thigh, again, his tongue flat and still over Laurent’s hole while he waited for the petrified stillness to melt. Damen exhaled, slowly, luxuriating in the impossible closeness. Laurent’s hips twitched in response, in a mindless chase for Damen’s tongue that he took as a cue to keep going when Laurent settled again with the faintest of sounds.

He licked again, very slowly, mouth open and head perfectly still. His eyelids dropped close, only the physicality and the subtle waves along Laurent’s muscles to guide him. Every time he moved his mouth, to kiss down on him properly before continuing, Laurent shivered. With the faintest smile to himself, Damen circled the tip of his tongue on the dip of him, teasing his entrance and tricking it into opening up for him. At the first breach of his tongue, Laurent’s leg seized for just a second, but the width of Damen’s shoulders kept them from closing up. 

“Nh…” 

The motion rippled around, attempting to cement off into stillness again. Damen drove back, recognizing Laurent’s constant exercise in repression. With another lover, he would have shushed the tension away; with Laurent, he just caught his breath, caressing down on his back to bring both hands on his rear. Laurent forced an exhale, and his shoulders disappeared again behind the raised curve of his body over the pillow. Between his spread legs, he was hard and flushed, dripping down on the verge of an orgasm that wasn’t fully suppressed. Another couple of breaths, and the tension of his feet on the mattress subsided.

When Damen didn’t move, Laurent pressed back on the thumbs stroking on the dip of his tailbone. Something coiled with lust in the depth of his body, and Damen spread him wide with two hands before diving in again.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Laurent could feel himself breathing, the dip of his stomach pressing against the pillow. A faint throbbing radiated through his temples every time he clenched his jaw too tightly, and it must have been connected with the ringing in his ears, because they followed the same rhythm._

_Damen was behind him, above him, touching and kissing and breathing, seemingly unaware of how awkward the curve of Laurent’s limbs must be against the mattress. He would make Laurent forget himself. Damen wouldn’t even point it out or notice because he would be too busy looking at Laurent. Laurent pleased Damen just by existing, by virtue of not trying.  
The ache for him was deep seated in months of absence and all he wished in his heart was to run hot and then hotter, for the combustion to spread, trusting Damen to build impossibly from the ashes. _

_The shiver that kept creeping up was incongruent, and foreign, like no cockroach ever belongs to the space it occupies._

_Stopping to dissect it would require stopping Damen from the task he was so invested in, and Laurent could not possibly let it happen. It would appear that getting out of his mind was the way forward sometimes, and Damen dragged him, one caress after another, all the way to a place where everything would be easier._

_It was, gloriously so._

_Touch and tongue and lips._

_Scratch. And shivering._

_Laurent let his eyelids drop, abandoning even the exercise of recomposing Damen’s posture, and figure, and expression from the touches he was blindingly receiving. Scattered parts floated around, and Damen kept licking, and licking, his tongue more encompassing than it could possibly be in the inflating disorientation of Laurent’s mind._

_Scratch. And shivering._

_His cock throbbed between his legs and he could just let go. It would please him, to have pleased Laurent._

_Scratch. And shivering._

_Something seized his throat while the room blurred, spinning perceptions around. There was nothing wrong with the rub of Damen’s beard, not according to his skin and the diffused pleasure of the contact. And yet something creeped at the back of his tongue, and the roof of his mouth._

_It was so good. His ribcage was scratching as well._

_It was so good. Foreign like a cockroach._

_It was so good he could melt down on it. His inside scrambled._

_“Nh…”_

_Laurent opened his eyes, the duvet out of focus under his cheek. His cock was dripping, but his pleasure froze over like an early spring blossom in a blizzard. And yet Damen’s hands were on him and the focus was coming back, one breath after another, melting everything in its path. Laurent wanted, and wanted._

_He tilted his hips up, lacking the proper words to offer what he truly yearned to share. Damen still met him halfway, without requiring further explanations._

_His breath touched Laurent before his tongue. For one second, the whole world was on the tip of Damen’s tongue, pressing down until Laurent’s body conceded and let it slip in. Laurent’s lips dropped open._

_The scratch came after and his mind flipped, scrambling reality out of consistency. But the tongue was wriggling in and it was impossible to hold the crash together._

_“Ah!”_

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Ah!”

Somewhere above, Laurent sounded as if Damen snatched something out of him. Damen opened his mouth further and pressed his tongue into Laurent with more intent, the first unconditioned yielding now turned into waves of relaxing and clenching. Pleasuring Laurent like this was a fight against the strength of his body, one that Damen was more than willing to partake in. He kept Laurent open, spread under his hands, but twisted the grip so he could dig his fingers in the softest spot where the curve of the buttocks met Laurent’s inner thighs. 

Over the wet sounds of his own mouth, Damen could hear Laurent panting, a labouring half choked by the press of the pillow on his diaphragm but slipping away from the ever-present resolve to silence. The bones of Laurent’s ankle pressed against Damen’s leg, and his hips twitched away, while Laurent inhaled sharply and did not exhale again. 

Damen grabbed his legs and pulled him back, tonguing him even more firmly. Laurent’s opening went completely lax around him for a moment, before convulsing. Damen felt Laurent coming and wiggled around, encouraging the sensation, until Laurent’s breath broke its holding, heavy and almost weezing.

He slipped his tongue out and relented his grip on Laurent, nosing affectionately on his rear and kissing the rounding of his cheeks again, in turns, even more delicate. 

Laurent made the tiniest of sounds, and shivered, spread and open and wet.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_The first edge was always the more insidious. Laurent could refrain from approaching it, and scramble off the brink at the best of his possibilities, but detaching himself from the sweet promise of release was not always trivial, after. It was particularly difficult with Damen, adroit at making Laurent unravel in more ways he would have even thought possible, before they met._

_Damen’s tongue was inside, and it was restless and shameless, demanding Laurent to give in, simply. Because it could be simple. Yet there was another feeling, skin-deep and well-settled at the same time, straining him to not relinquish, ever._

_Thoughts ran slippery through his mind._

_It was simple. It wasn’t. It was glorious. It was despicable._

_It was just the two of them, intimate and finally together. The room was crowded in ghostly cockroaches, there to witness Laurent’s defeat._

_Every caress along his hips and thighs, every maddening swirl of tongue, pooled his insides with heat. Every scratch against his skin ran in the undertones, resurfacing on his wrists and slithering like ice along the path of his veins._

_He couldn’t breathe._

_He wanted it. He wasn’t sure he could take it. He wanted it even more because of his uncertainty, and didn’t know what to do with it._

_Pushing away was an useless feat, improper and untrue to himself. Damen knew to pull him back, Laurent wanted him to. He didn’t know what to do with this, but the cliff was too steep and he toppled over it regardless._

_His orgasm rocked him out of his mind, out of perception, a collapse and an explosion at the same time._

_For a few seconds everything was blissfully blank._

_The grazed skin was the first to tingle. It whispered failure, weakness. Everything that loomed over him was alien, and yet exactly where it belonged. The graze was on the back of his sternum, now._

_Laurent shivered and the clenching of his hole, wet against Damen’s breath, open and empty, twisted the dull sound in his mind in something feral, almost tangible on the roof of his mouth._

_He reached back._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Damen lifted back from the spread of Laurent’s legs, admiring the warm glow of candlelight against the white skin. Face down and propped up by the pillow, it was all too easy to follow the sheen of sweat in the dip of his husband’s back with delicate fingers. The muscle jumped, over sensitive, under his touch, and inner curve of his backside had a reddish quality, courtesy of Damen’s beard, now slightly damp with his own spit. 

In an atypical uncoordinated move, Laurent squirmed his arm around and reached back. A swat on Damen’s hips accompanied his troubles, before Laurent stretched his fingers out and grasped, hard. He seemed on the verge of trying to communicate something, but Damen bent down and kissed the prominent knob at the bottom of Laurent's nape, and Laurent stilled completely once again.

“Hello,” Damen whispered, running a hand through the blond hair to comb them back from Laurent’s face. 

“Fuck me,” Laurent countered, with heavy voice and shaky vowels. He was still mostly plastered against the bed sheet, the flush along his cheekbones trailing down in patches.

“I really want to.” Chasing the shivers with a steady hand, Damen relinquished at the Laurent’s pull and let his cock slot between his firm cheeks. His spit dampened the side of it, and it was his own breath that faltered, now. “Let me get you ready for it.”

With his head abandoned in the span of Damen’s fingers, Laurent’s eyes turned to give a sweeping look behind him. He clenched against the cock slotted against him, distracted by the sensation, and the strength of his grasp turned bruising when he went to rock against Damen’s length. “I am. Fuck me” Laurent’s voice was as unfocused as his eyes, and yet insisting, “Fuck me.”

The scorching warmth of him elicited treacherous thoughts, need thick enough to be tasted. Had this been one of their restless days, the third coupling after a rare sequence of hour of indulgence barely interspersed by pressing duties, Damen would have submitted to the lure and sunk in. 

“Damn it, Laurent.”

Pressing down on Laurent’s nape, he reached towards one of the many vials of oil arranged on the bedside table. With a small, choked sound, the arch of Laurent’s spine went deeper, rocking once again against Damen’s stiff length. Only the promise of a more intimate contact soon to be obtained made Damen refrain; yet, in the impetus of conveying his unabashed _yearning_ for Laurent, sloppiness ensued. An abundant trail of oil marked the path of Damen’s dried spit from the crack of Laurent's buttocks to the tense sack of his testicles, the skin reddened by friction glistened at the trembling candlelight. A deep aroma spread among them, not common in Venetian tastes but easily found in Laurent's quarters. 

“Jasmine again,” Damen considered, transfixed by the contrast of his fingers spreading oil between Laurent’s legs. He had not closed them off and his hips kept twitching in a mad chase for every contact. “You're right to favour it. It does suit you.”

Laurent’s hands abandoned his hips and wandered aimlessly on the creased bed sheets. “Go on, please…”

“There is no rush,” Damen said, even while he gave into the lure of the fluttering entrance and sunk to fingers inside. The oil was richly dense and there was hardly any resistance to the steady increments of his movements. “There is never any rush.”

A small gurgling moan raised from Laurent’s throat while Damen gave him a couple of tentative thrusts, stroking the tension of his muscles until it subsided to the penetration. There was truth in his words, there was never any rush, and Damen would gladly provide to Laurent's pleasure for as long and as slowly as it would take to scratch every deep seated itches inside his body.

It was less easy tonight, with the prolonged absence looming over them.

Damen reached over and combed his free hand through the curls of blond hair, stroking and pulling them in counter rhythm with his fingers scissoring deep inside Laurent’s body. This close, he could hear the small sounds rolling over Laurent's throat, but even without them the pulsing and clenching of his hole around Damen’s fingers would have been unmistakable.

Laurent dropped his shoulders more fully into the bed, conceding to Damen’s treatment. Sliding out with two fingers, slowly, until only the tip was hooked on the oiled rim, was easy — coming back in with three, the index sneaking its way inside, required only some steadiness and the effect of surprise. It was possible that Laurent would not have tensed regardless. The fabric the sheets pulled and twisted in Laurent’s reflexive grip but Laurent only trembled, as if incapable of clenching against the fullness. His mouth dropped open, glistening with spit and quivering with heavy breathing. Damen crowded over his back, turning his head more with a pull in the strand of blond hair, giving up to the temptation to kiss him without even attempting to resist it.

The softest of the whines crashed against Damen’s tongue and for a moment Laurent seemed incapable of figuring out what to do with himself, apart from spasming against Damen’s fingers. Then Damen turned his hand slowly, stretching along the smear of oil, and Laurent latched on Damen’s mouth, hips rocking back in a reflex, legs open and spine arched. 

“Shit…” Damen swore softly in Akielon, breaking the kiss slightly. He could feel himself dripping and got even closer over Laurent, pressing the length of his cock against the skin of his thigh. It was silky and heated and absolutely delicious.

He let the fingers slid out. Laurent could have equally choked for the sudden emptiness and for the obscene squelching sound that accompanied. 

Damen chased him off for another kiss and slotted against Laurent’s back, his length between his cheeks, sharing the smear of oil. They were back the way they had started and too far down the line to not feel the promising lure of more to beacon them. 

The trembling fullness of Laurent’s lower lip was perfect to run Damen’s teeth on, with the most gentle of bites. Laurent let out a single moan, eyes shut as if in concentration.  
Damen felt ready to tease him more, possibly to rile him up towards a second crumbling. As it often happened, however, when Laurent snapped it was in disregard of any plan, unpredictable and intense.

The grip on Damen returned, spasmodic and asymmetric, Laurent reaching back with both hands and landing on Damen's left hip and right thigh. The strength of it would have been inconsequential, if it hadn’t taken Damen by surprise. As it was, it stilled him, with the vague awareness of Laurent’s body arching in a wave against his chest, of the tip of his cock catching the slippery edge of Laurent’s hole. Laurent rocked back and encouraged pressure, until the tip slid in. 

“Laurent…” Damen warned, breathless, lips hovering against his husband’s, mixing their breaths. 

Laurent buried his face against the mattress and _bucked_ , impaling himself on Damen’s cock. 

The scorching warmth of his insides pulsed around him, luring Damen into raising his head, one elbow still planted by the side of Laurent’s head. Attempting to ground him was a useless pursuit, dotted by nails dragging lines on his skin and the dip of Laurent’s shoulder blades, sinking with the tension. 

“Ah!...Ah...please… _ah_ …” 

Laurent seemed to lack coherence in several senses, his knees planted wide beside Damen’s legs. Locked into position as he placed himself, it was difficult for him to do anything more than cant their hips together, fucking himself onto Damen’s dick deeper, and deeper. There was something frenzied in the quality of his breath, something that promised that he would do all the work for himself and get this, get more regardless of whether Damen would dignify him with some help or not. 

“Shh, I’ll give it to you.” Damen bent forward again and kissed the sweaty skin at the centre of Laurent’s back. It made Laurent clench around him once more, and lose grip on Damen’s leg at the same time. 

With one arm around Laurent’s chest, lifting him up from the pillow, the first full thrust rocked them both together rather than separate them. Damen kissed along his spine, and Laurent gave up grasping on Damen’s hip to abandon himself to the rhythm of the thrusts.

“I’ll give it to you,” Damen growled low against his shoulders.

Laurent moaned low, and it sounded promising, somehow still anticipating.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_There were times when Laurent’s mind could only exist as a composition of intersecting threads, stitched together in the most unseemly of fabrics._

_He had started young, learning how to be a second son and a little brother. He had learned after how that split was no split at all, he had learned when he had to be a Crown Prince and a grieving child — royalty in the hall and somehow a servant in the bed chamber. After that it had only been worse — to be young and furious, and a detached viper. Hopeless and tired, and yet ruthless and unyielding._

_It only made sense, in this pattern, that he could be hunted and free simultaneously._

_Damianos had his own thread in Laurent’s mind, ever-growing and lively, branching out like a tree. In this net, Laurent could float in someone’s care, have someone to stroke his hair and slick his ass with the same love and patience. He could entrust himself to it, and usually nothing else could touch him while in Damianos’s arms._

_What was left of Laurent, though, seemed to constantly linger at the edges, cancerous and seething. An eternal reminder that he could make everything he wanted of himself but he was, and would forever remain, full of unspeakable needs and shameful drives. These tendrils hatched into his bones, drilled against his sternum, pathetic and angry like an ice burn._

_These threads should not intersect. There was no sensible reason for them to, not when Damianos had proven unparalleled in dissolving Laurent’s mental shackles._

_These threads had intersected. It was sickening to feel them spread, morbid, like pouring oil colours into the cleanest of springs and watching the pollution expand._

_Laurent did not know how to stop this._

_He did not want to stop this, he wanted Damianos, and his touch, he wanted all the sex he had to offer and then some, and he would die if this were to halt now. The pollution would catch him, it would bury him._

_He could not stop this, or he would regret this. Petulancy was not favoured, certainly not like obedience, surely not like compliance. One should not hope for appreciation if incapable of showing it. This was just a fact._

_A subtle, persistent ringing filled his ears, pulsing against his timbers and waving with the mad flow of his blood. Laurent could feel his own blood pressure everywhere but it still made his body run hot and then cold and then scorching._

_He could feel the penetration like the pin in a sundial, spinning all the shadows around it. Outward. Inward._

_It was deep and persistent, the perfect rhythm of it tickled along the roof Laurent’s mouth like sea sickness, or maybe it was just pleasure.  
It dragged him out of his mind, one thrust after the other, and he could moan for it, beg for it, and take it and take it and take it._

_The kisses along his back, behind his ears, along his shoulders shone brighter than a bonfire. There was that constant scratch accompanying them, though, and the light lengthened the shadows._

_Laurent drifted, uncertain of himself, too big and too small for the feeling and for the setting at the same time._

_He hitched his hips higher, devious and eager, as if he wasn't already getting everything that was promised to him and more.  
The change of angle made the next series of thrusts land so perfectly in the very core of him that he stumbled accidentally past release and directly in a purely distilled pleasure._

_He wailed around it, and the carefully defined borders of his mind blurred further._

  
  


* * *

  
  


In defiance of the strain of his own body, Damen poured himself into their lovemaking, until his bones tingled with it, sweat pooling at the side his nose and temples and breath catching fire at the back of his throat. 

When keeping Laurent up against his chest had served his purpose, and the renewed restlessness in Laurent’s limbs returned, he tossed the pillow blindly off the bed and guided Laurent face down again. There was no space for an unsatisfactory penetration when crashing against such a perfect body, curved towards Damen, unrestrained.

Underneath him, Laurent unravelled, better than any dream he had about him while travelling, his hands grasping at Damen's hips and then, when he couldn't anymore, on his forearms, right above the metal binding that they never substituted for wedding rings.

When Laurent snapped, again, Damen felt it approaching, like the rumble after a lightning. He saw it in the twisting of Laurent’s lean body, the drawing back of his shoulders sagging against Damen's hold as he pushed himself closer, in the tantalising but uncontrolled curving upwards of his buttocks. The tremor started on Laurent’s wrists and then ran him through, down his spine, all the way to his ankles. His calves twisted to latch onto Damen's. Throughout it, the clench around Damen's cock grew tight, then tighter, then strangling.

The wail followed, fluctuating out of Laurent's red, wet lips. Damen got to watch him coming undone with his face half-pressed against the linen, eyes unfocused as he shook, and shook some more. 

It only encouraged Damen more. He wanted Laurent to feel it, feel _him_ , reshape around him by virtue of pure pleasure. Keep him just there where the angle was _oh so perfect_.

Reaching around to stroke at the very heat of him, Damen found him still hard but leaking profusely at every twitch. If Damen thought he couldn't possibly feel headier, he was evidently mistaken.

“ _Laurent_ …” he breathed out, incredulous and mesmerised in his need. “You're...nhggh…”

“ _Good_.” Laurent's moan came barely discernible and shaking through his ribs. All the words were blurred together in a slippery Veretian. “It's so good, feels so _good_.”

Damen groaned deep enough to feel the sound rumble down his chest, like a growl. He kissed, and suck, and bit at the skin between Laurent’s shoulder blades, salty with sweat, and pressed him more solidly against his own body. A commanding stroking along the tip of his dick — impossibly hard and slippery wet — was sufficient to break the litany in favour of a fractured keening sound.

Engulfed in the twitching heat of him, Damen hung by a thread made of intense movements and unbelievable sensations. 

It took him very little to let go. Just Laurent spilling all over his fingers and clenching maddeningly all over again, and Damen was gone, releasing deep inside him, the pleasure of it almost surreal after all the time he spent missing this.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Sex filled the room like a presence, thick enough that Laurent could drag it like a duvet to drape over his shoulders. To weight him down, engulf him, suffocate him._

_Laurent did, between shamelessness and recklessness._

_He had demanded it, pursued it, and was now getting it, and getting it._

_The linen blurred, too close to his face. It could be any bed at any time in any place and he would still drool on it, unable to close his mouth and calm the raspy intake of breath hurting his throat. The coldness and sharpness of that air spread at the side of his neck, down the length of his spine, and got dutifully collected by hungry kisses that landed on his body with a rasp. From there, everything irradiated in a flash, raising more than goosebumps._

_It felt so good his whole body basked into it, quivering, nipples hardening against the rub of the sheets and the slow unpredictable pinching of callused hands. Laurent's mind collapsed in it, dragging his body along in the craziness. It was heavenly and visceral and it just kept going and going._

_“Good. It's so good, feels so good.”_

_It was a nightmare to admit it, but a liberating one at it._

_In the shredded fabric of his mind, cut and ripped and clawed down to unrecognizable pieces, this knowledge run like a guide, disregarding time and space._

_It felt good._

_Did it always?_

_He remembered his body on fire in other occasions. The first time it happened, and the fifth, and the tenth, and the seventh that might be the third and might be the ninth._

_How long was the count? That, he couldn't remember. That didn't make sense as a concept. He was probably still counting, still at it, a weight on his back and a beard burning along his shoulders as if his body wasn't already on fire enough._

_He knew he should stay still but he still couldn't. Not with a cock so deep, so smooth, still thrusting._

_There. There. There._

_It made him sick. He wanted it forever._

_His body laid, foreign, under the kisses, too big to keep counting, too small to withstand the proprietary touches without the violence that used to shape them._

_Was it always so visceral?_

_He caught his limbs curling around the body behind him — hands and feet and head and back._

_Maybe it had always been like this._

_Always, always, at every count._

_Only an ungrateful boy would feel sick about this. Greedy, spoilt._

_It felt so good._

_A hand wrapped around his cock, lighting sparks behind Laurent’s eyes. It was a guide towards more pleasure and his body followed before he could question whether it was a punishment, a trap. Maybe it wouldn't count regardless, because it felt just so good._

_He had gone up high and higher, the highest, and now he was shattering, consuming, each and every pore of his skin tingling._

_For a long, long moment his mind was still, a quivering black that wavered like a curtain in the wind at the slow, oblivious dancing of candlelight. A long, uneven whistle buzzed on his ears. He detached from his mind directly in his body, and his body was in heaven._

_The movements stilled but he was still burning through this, breathless._

_It felt good. It felt good._

_His mind slipped back in line all of a sudden. For hours, centuries, spent railing up, now he was there, really there, and yet he couldn't think._

_Sweat froze suddenly on his overheated skin. A bubble of air shook in his throat and then burst._

_When Laurent crashed, he crashed all at once._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Together, they rocked slowly to stillness, like waves retiring from mollified sand after a turbulent high tide. Damen’s knees were unsteady underneath him, making him increasingly aware of how much force he had put into them to satisfy Laurent's insistence and his own passion. 

Laurent's ribcage still jumped under the wrap of his forearms, loud and wheezing, consuming the full span of their climax. When Damen gingerly loosened his grip Laurent slumped against the mess of bedsheets. The fabric creased around them, petals of a flower blossomed under their weight or a detonated firework from a foreign land. His legs were still spread wide, offering and giving, and there was a remarkable gracelessness in him lying completely face down on the bed after Damen slid out of him, soft and sullied with come and oil. 

Sitting back, Damen took long minutes to admire the result of hours of work, the only thing that could drag Laurent out of his endearing after-love fussiness. 

He still remembered the first time Laurent had drooled all over his shoulder, riding on Damen's dick for so long that Damen could still feel the weight of him over his hips. It took him ten minutes after to match his breath with the twilight breeze coming from the windows of the Summer Palace. They had laughed together at Laurent’s admission that he didn't know how to move anymore, seasoned with so many dirty jokes on breaking stallions that Damen could have sworn Laurent had been raised as a stable boy of a brothel on a travel route.

He was quite looking forward to see what uncanny hilarity Laurent would find in this performance. Maybe something about testing the new bed, or warning Damen that with a Venetian court another round might qualify as an invitation to an after party in the royal chambers. 

He flopped down beside Laurent, smiling to himself for the weird symphony of their laboured breathing, almost too boyish for their age. The upper curtain of the canopy was deep blue and finely embossed with starbursts.

Minutes passed and his own heart stopped hammering on his ribcage, leaving way to a more bone-deep satisfaction.

Minutes passed but nothing came but more panting, restless, from Laurent.

An unspoken rule of comfort between them granted Laurent his time and space to settle after intimacy if he couldn't get up and proceed to his rituals himself. Something in the rhythm of this aftermath stuck Damen with an uncomfortable slither of a feeling at the back of his neck, though, so he disregarded their habits and turned to his side.

“Laurent?”

The softness of his calling didn't elicit any reaction. Laurent hadn't rearranged himself and kept lying with his forehead on the mattress, his hands pressed flat beside his head as if assessing the floor of a shaky boat. His face was half hidden, and yet not hidden enough to spare Damen the sudden realisation that Laurent was crying.

“Laurent?!”

A firmer address seemed to register, startling Laurent. Confusion clung to him, his face turning towards Damen as if his presence were unexpected. He still managed to flinch away before Damen’s outstretched hand could even brush him. His blue eyes went even wider, dark, and it was terrible to recognise the difference from any other expression Damen had ever seen on him.

Damen would not insult his own discernment or Laurent’s steadfastness by asking him if he was hurt. The picture presented to him was, however, quite preposterous. The flush along Laurent’s cheeks and the smeared redness around his wet lips spoke of satisfying sex, the kind that could persuade even him to lazy in bed until late morning. The haunted look in his eyes and the subtle clattering of his teeth resembled the fifteen years old farm boys when they emerged from bloody battles they partook in only for loyalty to the kingdom.

“Laurent, can you talk to me?” Damen said, hushed and slower. He didn't attempt to get closer again, but left his hand resting close to him, palm up like an offering.

Laurent stared at him, and at his hand, and at the room, restless. His eyelids blinked furiously, fat tears abandoned his increasingly burning eyes at every breaking of his wheezing breath. He turned slowly, painfully rigid, curling just beside the palm of Damen’s hand. Staring at it seemed non-negotiable, but the situation seemed to worsen.

“Ngh…” Laurent cracked, brokenly. “It felt so good…”

The erratic pace of Laurent's breath riled up and up. The trembling of it reached Damen’s hand, almost tactile, filling the room with uneasiness and leaving Damen at loss of a possible reply.

As quickly as it inflated, the bubble broke, and Laurent devolved in heart-wrenching sobs. They shook him bodily, pushing the tears to run faster and burning Laurent’s eyes in the process.

“Laurent…” Damen whispered again, but he did not dare move his hand in case that would cue a hasty retreat or a further collapse.

The helplessness of this predicament was stunning, out of line with anything Damen had ever faced — by himself, or with Laurent. He had thought he knew the drills of his husband's temper, in both its fragility and its strengths. He knew him to be destructive, ruthless, self-denying. Whoever or whatever had attempted to slander him had always got Laurent's raging repercussions to remind them that he never, ever, went down alone. With the notable exception of Laurent's uncle, Damen knew how to tell the signs, and where and how to place himself in the path.

The wretched sounds pouring down in the room, while Laurent stared into nothingness and only moved to hide his face behind a shaking right hand, were something else entirely. The fact that everything he would provide as an explanation came in the form of hiccupping comments on how good they had just made love didn't help Damen understand. 

“My love, please, I promise everything is all right,” Damen whispered, like the worst liar in the world. It was most likely not all right and yet he desperately wished for it to be, and for himself to be able to help. 

He reached over again and this time, when Laurent didn’t flinch away, he ran three fingers slowly along the back of the hand covering his husband’s face, from the dip between the knuckles all the way down his tendons. He did it once down, then traced the same path upwards, then slid towards the wrist again. From behind the hand, tears dripped messily at the edge of Laurent’s aristocratic jawline and a shivering sweat collected on at his temples. 

Then, suddenly taken by yet another inexplicable instinct, Laurent grasped on Damen’s hand with his left hand and let the right slide away from his face. He tilted his head and pressed against Damen’s own palm. His mouth hung open and wet at the bent of Damen’s thumb, and a furious digging of short nails assured that Damen was not going to move while Laurent pressed. The wheezing breaths kept coming, made irregular by the impossible pace of his sobs. The contact was messy in a way that would have been unfathomable for Laurent in any other situation, slick with tears and saliva.

And yet, somehow, it helped, and as suddenly as it came the crisis winded down. It left Laurent with a bobbing throat and jumping chest, with redness that expanded in patches all the way down his neck, but the tears stopped falling. 

He didn’t let Damen go, but neither he fought him when he made to turn his hand, caressing down the side of his face. Out in the open, Laurent’s expression bore the clear sign of his fallout, his fair complexion congested and tightened by the salt of his own tears. He stared forward unblinkling, eyes too bright and still watery. There was something disoriented about him that hurt to watch. 

Damen cupped his face, wiping out some of the wetness on Laurent’s lips, and then slid along his cheeks, as delicately as possible. Just as slowly, Laurent raised his gaze to look at him, and swallowed heavily one time more, against nothing. Finding words was difficult, when Laurent himself was disturbingly silent, instead of burying the whole situation into an endless stream of dialectics. 

“Would you…” Damen attempted, reproachful of his own hesitations, “...like some water?”

Laurent’s staring didn’t subside, somewhat haunting in surveying Damen with a renewed stillness. When he attempted to say something in return, however, something gagged in his throat, and he gave in to nodding, regardless of what the initial intention had been. 

Damen let go of him carefully, and Laurent retreated against the same mountain of pillows that had been a source of humour hours — or ages — before. There had never been this much dissociation between a sex-disheveled appearance and the overall feeling of the bed. No eagerness of Damen to fix this — or at least make it better — seemed to match with a possible action to achieve it. 

Laurent drank, and finally gave a proper exhale, his hands gripping at the gilded glass almost dangerously tight. 

“Laurent, is there…”

“I want,” Laurent interrupted, staring at him with an unnerving lack of a proper expression, “to shave you.” 

“Shave?” Damen blinked, at loss, touching his beard with two fingers.

“Will you let me?” The insistence cut through the rhythm of other questions. “Let me.”

A particular crease on Laurent’s forehead, as he tried to demand and ended up with an undertone of begging, left Damen with the lingering question of what would happen if he were to deny him. 

“Yes, of course,” he said, instead. _Whatever you want_ , he left implicit. 

Still staring at him, Laurent skittered his fingers along Damen’s forearm and then lingered on his wrist, before reaching over and stroking the side of his beard. He didn’t breathe through it but this close, and so directly facing him, Damen could see his eyes widening and the unmistakable tremor on his bottom lip before he pressed his mouth shut. The hand closed in a fist and he retreated again. 

“Thank you,” Laurent enunciated neatly, and slid off the bed towards the toiletry corner--tucked away behind a heavily decorated screen. Whatever act of composure was unfolding as a counter effect, it was betrayed by the fact that Laurent shuffled around naked, a composition of beard rubs, hickeys. Sweat, tears, spit and come all equally left to dry against his skin.

The picture of it clattered together before Damen’s eyes. All was left after every action and reaction were accounted for was a memory of the Regent’s expression when he had ordered Laurent to kneel.

_I want to shave you, let me_.

The sickening weight that landed in Damen’s stomach had an aftertaste of failure, and horror.

“Laurent…” he started, again, for what he felt like the hundredth time in the evening, making his way towards him. 

He was stopped way before, by Laurent emerging with full arms and slightly evasive eyes.

“Sit.” He gestured vaguely at nothing in particular. 

Damen did, unsure of what he would have said to forward the conversation if Laurent had let him. The closest piece of furniture was the velvety couch placed, rather uselessly for any other occasion, at the feet of the King’s bed. It seems to satisfy Laurent just fine, even with the both of them naked and jarred. He loomed over Damen, edging closer with one knee sliding up the cushion to steady himself.

What followed was the most imprecise shaving Damen had ever had in his life. There was no hot water and steamy towels prepared for it, and no servant with the proficiency of a thousand trials to perform the task. Quite likely, neither him or Laurent had ever shaved themselves without anyone attending them before, and it became self evident. And yet, Damen subjected himself to it almost happily, tilting his head obligingly for every run of the razor. Laurent had started hesitantly, his hands almost shaking even while he foamed up the soap in cold water and spread it around to provide a guide to the blade. His gestures grew in surety the more he dirtied the towels with the spoils of his quest, exposing more and more of Damen’s cheeks, of his chin and lips, of his neck. 

The final result was ragged — Damen knew it even without having a mirror to look at — but Laurent’s breath had evened out. He ran one finger along Damen’s cheek, ending at the edge of his lips, and Damen kissed his fingertips, staring intensely. When Laurent stopped examining his handiwork and lifted his eyes, they met each other’s eyes directly.

“Do you feel any better?” Damen whispered, a shared secret. 

Laurent flipped the razor closed and dropped it on the dirty towels. “Yes.”

The bold move of raising a hand and stroke on Laurent’s naked side prompted Laurent to slide fully on Damen’s lap, still lingering on his cheek. When he stopped staring, it was just to move his head to the side and drop it on Damen’s shoulder. 

“Laurent, I’m sorry,” Damen murmured, turning his head to kiss on the crown of Laurent’s head. His blond hair was still in disarray and he smelled faintly of the sex they just had. It seemed incongruent and wrong that there was nothing of him, like this, that would act as a clear warning. “I will never grow it again.”

Laurent tensed, a displeased frown creasing his forehead against Damen’s clavicle. “That’s...not necessary.”

The slight stuttering and the content were enough to elicit a skeptical hum from Damen.

“I’m serious,” Laurent sighed deeply, and yet he didn’t lift his head. “It felt so good.” 

Hearing the same sentence outside of the peak of their passion felt like a dark confession, layered of meaning Damen didn’t feel ready to discern. Silence lingered between them, five seconds too long.

“It was too much.” Of that much, Damen was sure.

“Yes,” Laurent admitted, in a very small voice, there and gone as if it never happened, as if the two statements weren’t absolutely incongruent. “Not soon, though.”

Damen nosed slowly in Laurent’s hair, shutting his eyes under the impossibility of this discussion, of getting it right in all this uncontrollable wrong. “Not ever, or only at your will.”

Laurent nodded, one hand still pressing on Damen’s cheek above him. He said nothing more and he sighed, his weight resting more heavily against Damen. Just as silently, Damen crossed his arms at the small of Laurent’s back and held him close. 

Somewhere in the distance, past the tall windows, the black of the night sky softened towards a deep blue. The stars were dimmed but a promise of dawn approaching felt like comfort.

  
  
  


[[[ Some beautiful art by [Linecrosser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LineCrosser/pseuds/LineCrosser), who you can find in [all these places](https://linecrosser.tumblr.com/about) but particularly on [Wordpress](https://alinecrosser.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/echo-chamber/) ]]]  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Kudos, comments, incoherent screeching on my [Tumblr](http://seekthemist.tumblr.com) askbox and random keysmashes into the void are very much appreciated!
> 
> Stay tuned, because the festive season has barely begun.


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